How and Why did the Liberals Help the Poor?
- Created by: Conrad Will
- Created on: 17-04-14 16:19
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- How and Why did the Liberals Help the Poor?
- What Were the Working and Living Conditions like for the Poor in the 1890s?
- Serious Hardship
- Main source of help was the workhouses
- Provided food and lodging in exchange for long, brutal hours of labour
- Seen top be shameful
- Provided food and lodging in exchange for long, brutal hours of labour
- Serious unemployment in some industries
- No 'dole'
- Old people with no savings or family suffered badly - no government pensions
- Only way out was the workhouses
- Housing was extremely damp and cold, with no proper swage
- Ver easy to fall sick
- People lost out on work and risked unemployment
- Most could not afford doctors or medicines
- Ver easy to fall sick
- Many children had to work from an early age
- Lost out on education
- Large numbers of people couldn't even afford to eat properly
- Half the men recruited for the Boer War (1899-1902) were malnourished
- Main source of help was the workhouses
- Charles Booth
- Published 1st edition of Life and Labour of the People in 1889
- Indicated that 30% of people in London were living in severe poverty
- Sometimes impossible to find work
- Published 1st edition of Life and Labour of the People in 1889
- Seebohm Rowntree
- Published Poverty: A Study of Town Life in 1901
- Showed that 28% of people in York were so poor they couldn't even afford basic food and housing
- Published Poverty: A Study of Town Life in 1901
- Public Opinion
- Popular and well-respected writers like Charles Dickens and George Bernard Shaw wrote about the poor and said they needed help
- People involved in public health and medicine said the government should get more involved with health issues
- Socialists said that wealth should be spread more evenly amongst wooers and rich employers such as factory owners
- The upcoming Labour Party argued the government should give financial help to the poorest members of society
- Serious Hardship
- How Were Social Reformers Reacting to the Social Problems of the 1890s?
- Children
- 1906 - Free School Meals
- Allowed LEAs to provide free school meals paid fro out of rates
- 1907 - Free Medical Inspections
- Compulsory for LEAs to provide inspections within school clinics
- From 1912, treatment could also be provided, but was left up to LEAs
- Medical care subsequently varied all over the country
- 1908 - Children and Young Person's Act (Children's Charter)
- Made it illegal for children under 16 to buy cigarettes, enter a pub or beg
- Set up juvenile courts
- Set up borstals
- Set up probation service
- 1906 - Free School Meals
- The Elderly
- 1908 - State Pensions Act
- For people over 70 on a low income
- Single people with an income less than £21 got 5s a week
- Married couples with an income less than £21 got 7s 6d a week
- Anyone with an income between £21 and £31 got a smaller pension
- Anyone with an income over £31 didn't get a pension at all
- The scheme was non-contributory - a huge step
- While the pension was only ever intended to be supplementary, its effect was enormous
- The number of people claiming outdoor relief fell by 80,000
- While the pension was only ever intended to be supplementary, its effect was enormous
- in the 1908 budget, £1,200,000 was set aside for the pensions
- For people over 70 on a low income
- 1908 - State Pensions Act
- The Workers
- 1909 - The Trade Boards Act
- Set up trade boards for each of the 'sweated industries'
- Mde up of equal numbers of workers and employers, with a neutral chairman
- The board's job was to decide a minimum wage for that industry
- Employers paying less could be fined
- Factory inspectors made sure the Act was put into practice
- Set up trade boards for each of the 'sweated industries'
- 1909 - The Labour Exchanges Act
- Unemployed workers could go to labour exchanges to find job vacancies
- Within five years there was a network right accords Britain
- One million jobs a year were filled by the exchanges
- 1911 - The National Insurance Act
- Health Insurance
- Each week, workers paid 4d, the employers, 3d and the government 2d into a central fund
- Sick pay of up to 10s a week was paid to workers if off sick for more than four days for up to 26 weeks
- Women only received 7s 6d a week sick pay as they earned less in the first place
- They were entitled to a one-off maternity grant of 30s
- Women only received 7s 6d a week sick pay as they earned less in the first place
- Insured workers were also entitles to freed medical care
- A doctors' 'panel' listed all the names of insured workers. Doctors were paid by the government for every worker on the panel
- Caused controversy - Conservatives said the government had no right o take people's wages and Labour said tax from the rich should pay for it, not the workers
- Unemployment Benefit
- Applied to workers in inconsistent industries, such as shipbuilding, iron founding and construction
- Employers and workers both paid 2.5d and the government 1.75d into an employment fund
- Workers were paid 7s a week for up to 15 weeks when unemployed
- Applied to workers earning less than £160
- Health Insurance
- 1909 - The Trade Boards Act
- Children
- Why did the Liberal Government Introduce Reforms to Help the Young, Old and Unemployed?
- Royal Commission
- In 1905 the Conservative government set up a commission to look at the Poor Law
- This was the law in the 19th Century which set up workhouses and other help for the poor
- The panel on the commission couldn't agree whether the Poor Law was good enough, so they published two reports
- This was the law in the 19th Century which set up workhouses and other help for the poor
- The Minority Report
- People couldn't help being poor
- Illness, old age and a shortage of jobs made people poor
- More should be done to prevent people being poor
- The Majority Report
- If people were poor it was their own fault
- They made themselves poor by gambling and drinking - they didn't deserve help
- Enough was being done for the poor already
- In 1905 the Conservative government set up a commission to look at the Poor Law
- 1906 - Social Reform!
- Liberals win a landslide general election
- 29 Labour MPs were elected, giving the party a good position to push the Liberals for reform
- The battle between the Liberals and Labour for the working-class vote produced 'New Liberalism'
- The poor physical condition of men in the Boer War was shocking - if there was ever a war, Britain would need a healthy working class to fight
- David Lloyd-George and Winston Churchill were prominent figures throughout the reforms
- Royal Commission
- How Effective Were These Reforms?
- The 1909 Budget (The People's Budget)
- Income taxed raised to 6 from 5 pence in the pound
- New super-tax of 1s 2d in the pound on incomes over £3000
- Death Duties went up
- 'Sin' tax went up
- The House of Lords blocks the Budget
- The Liberals call the 1910 General Election
- In victory, the Liberals reintroduced the Budget and it was passed by both houses
- The Parliament Act, 1911 was passed to prevent such crises occurring
- The Lords could no longer reject financial acts and could only block other acts twice
- The Parliament Act, 1911 was passed to prevent such crises occurring
- In victory, the Liberals reintroduced the Budget and it was passed by both houses
- The Liberals call the 1910 General Election
- The Liberal Reforms left some problems unsolved
- Hardly any of the new schemes applied to the whole population
- The National Insurance Act didn't cover workers families and unemployment benefit didn't apply to all industries
- The Reforms didn't replace the Poor Law - workhouses weren't abolished until 1930
- Changed attitudes towards the poor
- The first time national taxes had been used to help the poor
- The state took on responsibility for taking care of those in extreme hardship for the first time
- The schemes were nationwide
- Large numbers were covered - NIA covered 10 million workers
- New provisions didn't have the same stigma as the workhouse and fewer people had to rely on the Poor Law
- The number of non-governbemnt welfare organisations, such as Friendly Societies, declined
- The 1909 Budget (The People's Budget)
- What Were the Working and Living Conditions like for the Poor in the 1890s?
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